Video
Fort Union Trading Post Life of a Post Hunter
Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING] Hello. I'm Ken Anderson. I work here at Fort Union. This is the Hunter Shack at Fort Union. This was the place where the hunters lived. They did not, generally didn't live what the rest of the crew in the dwelling range. They were a little bit farther up on the scale of things. They could have their own place. Now the hunters, they had the three or four of them on staff most the time, and their job was to keep this bunch fed. There could be over 100 people here at Fort Union in the summertime and still 40 or 50 in the wintertime. What they did was hunt the meat that they ate here. Buffalo was the primary animal they hunted. They could take 400 to 600 of those a year to feed these guys. Deer was also taken a long with other small game such as rabbits, squirrels, various birds and geese and such. They did not hunt elk, because it was too dry a meat. And they didn't hunt pronghorn, because there were times of year when the meat stank. Length of hunt might be up to several days. But generally, they didn't go out beyond 20 miles from the post. A couple of the things that they would have used, a couple of the guns. For Buffalo running, they'd use the trade musket. It was quick and easy to use. They can get off up to 10 shots in a mile if they're well practiced. Other times when they're hunting, they may take the rifle out. Now you notice, this one's a flintlock. That was in use up here all the way through the life of the fort. The percussion guns got up here in the late 1840's, and we know by the early 1850's that the rifles of this sort were common on here. Now, the hunter would be paid reasonably well, usually between $450 and $600 a year. You'd get the hides, you'd get the antlers and horns also which had value, and some of the meat. How much meat he kept depending on where during the life of the fort it was. Early on, they got to keep more than later. But they usually got the tongue of the buffalo, which was one of the prime parts in those days. So thank you much. And hope you're having fun here. [MUSIC PLAYING]
Description
An in-depth look at the life of Fort Union's Post Hunter.
Duration
2 minutes, 37 seconds
Credit
NPS / Brittnei Sherrod
Date Created
12/07/2011
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